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Love, life, and all of the above is what you’ll find in this new read. Sarah Dessen does it again with this amazing novel that will have you up for hours. Two thumbs up!

—Girls Life

Lock and Key is a touching story of moving on but hanging on, accepting love and giving love, told in the quick-paced, flowing style that is a hallmark of Sarah Dessen.

—South Florida Sun Sentinel

In Sarah’s Words

When I was writing my first book, I lived in a little yellow farmhouse in the country. Three years and two books later, we moved into a big new house we’d built ourselves far on the other side of town. However, I still thought about that little house a lot, and how it represented the life I’d had before: before I was a real writer, before I was even an adult, at least in my own mind. Last year, I was out that way and decided to drive by, only to find that it was…gone. It had not been occupied by someone else, or renovated, but had vanished completely, demolished and cleared away to make room for a huge gated community. I remember pulling over to the side of the road, unable to believe my eyes. There was such a big difference between our little farmhouse and these enormous, fancy mansions. It got me thinking about the ways your life can change in an instant, while it often takes much longer to change yourself.

Book Description

What happens when your past is not just past, but wiped clean entirely? How do you figure out where you’re going when you can’t even claim where you’ve been? These were the questions that inspired Lock and Key. It’s the story of a girl named Ruby who is abandoned by her mother and determined to make it on her own, even—and especially—when she is sent to live with her long-lost sister in a whole new world of privilege, family, and relationships. As Ruby learns, there’s a big difference between being given help and being able to accept it. And sometimes, it takes reaching out to someone else to save yourself.